In the early '80s there were just a few designers who explored the connections between fashion and architecture. Gradually, this number started growing and, in the last ten years, mentioning architecture as a reference, collaborating with a studio on a collection or on the set for a runway show, has become the norm.
Architecture was just one of the main themes behind Virgil Abloh's Louis Vuitton A/W 21 menswear collection (the sixth he designed for the French luxury house).
Trained as an architect, Abloh was inspired for the A/W 21 men's collection by "Stranger in the Village", a 1953 essay by novelist James Baldwin.
The modernist marble set inside the Tennis Club de Paris and some of the moods from the collection were instead borrowed from Ludwieg Mies van der Rohe's German pavilion designed for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona (the richness of colours and materials and interior concept and furniture for the space were developed by Lilly Reich).
Abloh admires Mies van der Rohe and the Barcelona Pavilion was an iconic, idealised and idolised structure designed to present a modern country and an open society.
Built in two months, the pavilion pointed at an artistic image of Germany, ruled by philosophical ideas and the art and design of the Bauhaus. The structure featured only four materials - travertine, two types of marble and onyx - each of them characterised by different textures, attached to the metal skeleton of the pavilion.
Classical and industrial materials combined with marble and reflective glass playing well with opacity and transparent dichotomies.
The pavilion only lasted for eight months, yet it kept on inspiring further generations of architects. In this case the building inspired the set, but its marble walls were also translated into the prints for the suits, while the shiny and transparent PVC suits and bags called to mind the glass elements of the pavilion.
Baldwin's essay, though, remained the main inspiration for this collection: "Stranger in the Village" focuses on the author's personal experiences and on his visits to Löeche-les-Bains, a Swiss village in the Alps in Switzerland (where he also finished his first novel, "Go Tell It On The Mountain") and in which Baldwin explained what it felt like being a Black American artist there.
The film showcasing the collection opens with American rapper and poet Saul Williams in a black overcoat wandering through a snowy mountain landscape, before the scene moves to the marble set (complete with Barcelona chairs and stools) where a performance combining art, slam poetry, dance and rap takes place (the presentation was supposed to be a live event, but due to COVID-19 restrictions the show was filmed without an audience).
Abloh combined the racial identity theme with the concept of roles in society through a series of looks that called to mind the attires of pilots, doctors, artists, gallerists, architects and students. These topics were combined with other themes, namely cultural appropriation and copyright matters. Belgian designer Walter Van Beirendonck accused Abloh of copying some of his previous looks for Louis Vuitton's S/S 21 collection. Abloh denied stealing and took the chance with this collection to ponder a bit about design, identity and plagiarisms.
Abloh has often been accused of being a plagiarist as he usually sticks to the 3% rule - that is changing minimal elements in a design to turn it into something new, but with this collection he reminded us that white designers have been appropriating continuously from other cultures (at a certain point of the film Kai Isiah Jamal states: "As Black people, as trans people, as marginalized people, the world is here for our taking, for it takes so much from us").
So through these designs he tried to build connections between Western cultures and African textiles, coming up with garments that combined checked and tartan patterns with kente cloth for example, while he also collaged Louis Vuitton's monogram with pyramids or world maps, elements that pointed at the symbolisms in wax fabrics.
These comparisons and juxtapositions worked much better than those designs or accessories (the looks combining feminine and masculine elements, the coats with long tails, the airplane-shaped bags and the skaters in tailored uniforms at the beginning of the film) that seemed to point at Thom Browne (think about his animal-shaped bags or tailored jackets matched with skirts).
Then Abloh fell into an architectural trap with jackets covered in 3D reproductions of skyscrapers and Paris monuments such as Notre-Dame cathedral and the Eiffel Tower. Though these are clearly showpieces, they looked too theatrical and a bit costumy (remember the 1931 École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts costume ball in New York that made history since it featured a group of prominent male architects dressed as buildings?), as if Abloh had assembled on a jacket Bodys Isek Kingelez's fantastic architectural installations or Yin Xiuzhen's fabric buildings.
Luckily there were just two of these uncanny assemblages, and the emphasis returned on African heritage and African draped wraps in celebration of his Ghanaian origins. The film was a call for diversity, bu it was also a collective effort.
It was indeed directed by Josh Johnson, and featured powerful words spoken by rapper Saul Williams and British poet and trans activist Kai-Isaiah Jamal, but the credits are long and include also musical director Asma Maroof, movement director Tosh Basco, dramaturgist Kandis Williams and rapper Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) who closes the film with a word full of hope, "Miracles".
In conclusion this was an artistic collection that affirms the power of the spoken word and of poetry as a trend this year (as seen at the Inauguration ceremony), but it also proves that Abloh should keep on looking inward to find some new inspirations rather than keeping on looking at others designers and sticking to the 3% rule. After all, it is our personal story that really counts in all the things we do in our lives, or, to put it as Oscar Wilde, "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
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